“Is that the truth?” she persisted.

He laughed and sipped his wine.

“No; I let you go because I saw in you—­I who have killed many for wealth and more for the mere pleasure of power—­something which told me that, after all, I had missed the secret.  From an outcast child in Havana I had made myself the sole king of this treasure of Mortallone.  I went back and made slaves of men and women who had tossed that child their coppers in contemptuous pity.  I brought them here, to Mortallone, to play with them; and as soon as they tired me, they—­went.  It was power I wanted; power I achieved; and in power, as I thought, lay the secret.  The tools in this world say that a poisoner is always a coward:  it is one of the phrases with which fools cheat themselves.  For long I was sure of myself; and then, when the thought began to haunt me that, after all, I had missed the secret, I sought out the man who, in Europe, had made himself more powerful than kings; and I found that he had missed the secret too.  Then I guessed that the secret is beyond a man’s power to achieve, unless it be innate in him; that the gods themselves cannot help a man born in bastardy, as I was, or born with a vulgar soul, as was Napoleon.  One chance of redemption he has—­to mate with a woman who has, and has known from birth, the secret which he has missed.  I guessed it—­I that had wasted my days with singing-women, such as poor ’Metta!  Then I met you, and I knew.  Yes, madam, you—­you, whose life to-night I had almost taken with a touch—­taught me that I had left women out of account.  Ah, madam, if the world were twenty years younger! . . .  Will you do me the honour to touch glasses and drink with me?”

“Not on any account,” said Miss Belcher, rising.  “Not to put too fine a point upon it, you make me feel thoroughly sick; but”—­she hesitated on the threshold of the window”—­the worst of it is, I think I understand you a little.”

I drew back into the shadow.  Her stiff skirt almost struck me on the cheek as she passed, and, crossing the verandah, leant with both hands on the rail, while her face went up to the sky and the newly risen moon.

A voice spoke to her from the moonlit terrace below.

“Hallo!” she answered.  “Is that Captain Branscome?”

“It is, ma’am:  and Miss Plinlimmon—­Amelia—­as she allows me to call her.”

Miss Belcher cut him short with a laugh.  It rang out frank and free enough, and only I, crouching by the wall, understood the hysterical springs of it.

“You two geese!” she exclaimed, and ran down the steps to them.

“Was that Lydia?” demanded Mr. Rogers, a moment later, as he came along the verandah.

“It was,” I answered.

“I don’t understand these people,” grumbled Mr. Rogers, pausing and scratching his head.  “There was to have been a meeting outside here, directly after supper, to divide off Doctor Beauregard’s share; but confound it if every one don’t seem to be playing hide-and-seek!  Where’s the Doctor?”